Even after implanting a sperm into an egg, there is no guarantee that an embryo will fertilize and grow.

After several tortuous days of waiting, our embryologist looks at each of our Petri dishes under a microscope hoping to discover that the eggs have transformed into blastocysts. A blastocyst is a cluster of five cells that will eventually divide, and divide again, until it becomes a baby.

When our embryologist showed us this image of the blastocyst that was eventually implanted inside me, I started to cry because it was the precious fruit of our labors, the beginning of a life. When she tells us that there isnt just one, but that six of my eleven eggs have matured into blastocysts (aka embryos), Mike begins to cry as well.